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CHARLES SUMNER 



TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



DANIEL HENRY CHAMBERLAIN, LL. D., 

Resident member of the Massachusett.ii Historical Society, 

etc., etc., etc. 



A review of parts of an Address by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, 
before the New York Historical Society, November 19, 1901. 



WORCESTER, MASS.: 

PRESS OF G. G. DAVIS. 

1902. 




CHARLES SUMNER 



AND THE 



TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



DANIEL HENRY CHAMBERLAIN, LL D., 

Resident member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
etc., etc., etc. 



A review of parts of an Address by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, 
before the New York Historical Society, November 19, 1901. 



Sed veteris proverbii admonitu vivorum memini, nee tamen Epicuri licet oblivisci. 

Cicero, de Finibus. v. 1. 3. 

I cannot set my authority against their authority. But to exert reason is not to 
revolt from authority. 

Burke, Letter I. o« a Regicide Peace. 



WORCESTER, MASS.: 

PRESS OF G. G. DAVIS. 
1902. 



^ A 






CHARLES SUMNER AND THE TREATY OF 
WASHINGTON. 



In November, 1901, Mr. Charles Francis Adams delivered 
in New York city before the New York Historical Society, an 
address, since published by the Society, under the title, "Be- 
fore and After the Treaty of Washington : The American 
Civil War and the War of the Transvaal." This address was 
a little later repeated in Boston in four lectures before the 
Lowell Institute.^ The theme, in Mr. Adams's hands, is 
a broad one, as well as one of high interest and importance, 
which Mr. Adams does not overrate, and it need not be said 
that it was treated by him with great ability and graphic force. 
The address is filled with strong expressions of opinion and 
marked by the utmost freedom of comment on men and events 
brought under review. Naturally, almost unavoidably, among 
the topics discussed at length is that of the relations of Charles 
Sumner to the Treaty of Washington. Intimating that he 
is using, to some extent, "unpublished material, — material 
not found in newspapers, public archives or memoirs which 
have already seen the light," ^ and styling the Treaty of Wash- 
ington, "a very memorable historical event," and President 
Grant, Secretary Fish, Senator Sumner, and Minister Motley, 
"great historical figures," Mr. Adams deals at length with all 
the leading persons and topics covered by his theme. Nowhere 
else can now be found so full, vivid, and thorough treatment of 
this large and influential chapter of our history as Mr. Adams 
here gives. 

The purpose of the present writer, however, is closely 
limited to an examination of Mr. Adams's views of Senator 

1 Accurate and full reports of the lectures appeared in the Boston 
Evening Transcript of December 4, 7, 11 and 14, 190 r. 
*^ Adams, Before and After, etc., i. 

—3— 



Sumner's relations to the Treaty of Washington, especially the 
matter of his removal from the chairmanship of the Senate 
Committee on Foreign Relations in March, 1871. 

It would probably be safe to say that the public had, till 
Mr. Adams spoke, remained fully persuaded that the cause of 
this removal was Sumner's opposition and what grew out of 
that opposition, to the San Domingo Treaty in 1870. This 
cause has, however, never looked well on the historical page, and 
the partisans and friends of Grant and Fish have not been willing 
to stand on it. The reason specially assigned both in the sena- 
torial caucus which decreed the removal and in the Senate 
where it was effected, was the personal relations of Sumner to 
Grant and Fish, which were then described as those of non- 
recognition and non-speaking in social or unofficial life. These 
relations, whatever of unpleasantness they involved, grew out of 
the disagreement between Grant and Fish on the one hand, and 
Sumner on the other, regarding a treaty for the annexation of 
San Domingo, negotiated by Grant by extraordinary methods 
and sent to the Senate in 1870. This treaty Sumner opposed, 
and it was defeated in the Senate, June 30, 1870. Motley, 
who was an old and special friend of Sumner, was the next 
day asked to resign his position as minister to England, an act 
which has been almost universally regarded as a blow at Sum- 
ner, followed, as it was, by a dispatch signed by Fish which, in 
its style and in its references to Sumner, far overpassed the 
bounds of ordinary diplomatic propriety. Of the real motive 
of the removal of Motley, Mr. Adams thus speaks : — 

"He (Grant) consequently regarded this action (opposition to the 
San Domingo treaty) on the part of the Senator at the head of the Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations, as during the War he would have regarded 
the action of a department commander who refused to co-operate in the 
plan of general campaign laid down from headquarters and exerted him- 
self to cause an operation to fail. Such a subordinate should be summarily 
relieved. He seems actually to have chafed under his inability to take this 
course with the Chairman of a Senate Committee ; and so he relieved his 
feelings at the expense of the friend of that Chairman, the minister to 
England, who was within his power. Him he incontinently dismissed."^ 

1 Adams, Before and After, etc., ii8. 

—4— 



This is a succinct as well as an accurate summary of the 
proceeding. It is not necessary in the present discussion to 
notice further the Motley affair. 

Evidently ill at ease regarding the reason assigned at the 
time for Sumner's removal, Grant in 1877, six years after the 
removal and three years after Sumner's death, in two inter- 
views, one in Scotland, and the other at Cairo ; and Fish in 
the same year, in several newspaper letters and interviews ; put 
forward as the ground of the removal, dereliction of duty on 
Sumner's part in failing to report in due time several treaties 
sent to the Senate and there referred to Sumner's committee 
during the session following the removal of Motley. Into this 
phase of the controversy it is not necessary to go farther than 
to say that friends of Sumner procured the removal of secrecy 
from the Senate records covering the period named, the last 
year of Sumner's service as chairman, and the charge of 
neglect of duty as specified by Grant and Fish was shown to 
be wholly unfounded. 

In January, 1878, J. C. Bancroft Davis, who had been 
one of Fish's assistant secretaries, appeared in an elaborate 
letter in the New York Herald, ^ in which, after again putting 
forward the disproved charge of neglect of duty on Sumner's 
part, he brought out, for the first time, so far as the present 
writer has discovered, a certain memorandum which he alleged 
was sent by Sumner to Fish, January 17, 1871, by which he 
claimed that Sumner put himself in entire opposition to any 
possible settlement of the pending controversy between Eng- 
land and the United States growing out of our Civil War. It 
does not appear that this memorandum, as exploited by Davis, 
was effective to change the general judgment upon the cause 
or merits of Sumner's removal, or indeed that it has ever 
hitherto attracted much attention in any quarter. Now, how- 
ever, thirty years after the event, Mr. Adams takes up the 
theme, and while not asserting that the fact of this memoran- 
dum, or any other of the reasons given for Sumner's removal, 

^New York Herald, Jan. 4, 1878. 

—5— 



was the real reason moving Grant and Fish and the senators, 
does assert, in round terms, that this memorandum of January 
17, 1871, made it justifiable, necessary, and right for the 
administration, if it could do so, to secure the removal of Sum- 
ner from the head of the Senate committee on foreign relations. 
Referring to Sumner's removal, Mr. Adams says: "Under 
these circumstances the course now pursued (the removal of 
Sumner) was more than justifiable. It was necessary as well 
as right." ^ What the circumstances were will fully appear 
hereafter. 

The present question is : Must we revise our opinion of 
Sumner so far as to think that the removal was just and war- 
ranted on the grounds on which Mr. Adams puts it? 

It should be said at once that Mr. Adams is not to be 
ranked with the enemies of Sumner. Neither in Sumner's 
lifetime nor since has Mr. Adams's attitude towards him been 
unfriendly or disparaging. If not a special admirer or eulogist, 
he has been and is now wholly unmoved by any feeling, as we 
may well believe, except that of historical justice and truth. 
Grant obviously became vindictively hostile to Sumner ; and 
Fish, as the friend and subordinate of Grant, was actively and 
willingly hostile ; but Mr. Adams comes forward as an impar- 
tial, cold student of history, and has no interest or prejudice 
adverse to Sumner. His judgment is, therefore, weighty, and 
must have consideration. It compels the re-examination of a 
controversy which is at once complicated and painful — pain- 
ful in many aspects — but one which touches the fame of a lofty 
name in our annals. Those, however, who would guard the 
memory of Sumner are not, on that account, to be rated as 
enemies of Grant or Fish. They wish only, it should be 
assumed, to see justice done to all, injustice to none. 

Recalling, then, that in April, 1869, Grant was Presi- 
dent, Fish, secretary of state, Sumner, chairman of the Senate 
committee on foreign relations, and Motley, minister to Eng- 
land, it should now be said that Sumner had held his post con- 

^Adams, Before and After, etc., 128. 



tinuously since the reorganization of the Senate committees on 
the retirement of the secession senators in 1861, and, it is 
superfluous to add, was better qualified for the position than 
any other senator, if not any other man in the country. Mot- 
ley was, of all Americans then living and available, generally 
regarded the fittest to represent his country at the English 
capita] . 

Another event must here be noted as part of the tangled 
web of circumstances which envelops the controversy now 
under examination. The treaty known as the Johnson-Claren- 
don Convention for the settlement of the Alabama claims 
against England had been signed in January, 1869, during the 
presidency of Andrew Johnson ; but action on it by the Senate 
had been postponed until after the accession of Grant. While 
this treaty was under discussion in the Senate, Sumner in 
April, 1869, opposed it in a speech in which he set forth at 
length the unfriendly course of England during our civil war 
and the vast pecuniary injuries thereby done to our nation as 
well as to individuals. It must be said here, peremptorily and 
once for all, that this famous speech was not a demand for 
pecuniary reparation for national injuries, as has been so per- 
sistently represented, though not by Mr. Adams. It was a 
presentation or statement of injuries done ; and it was a true 
presentation. It went in no respect beyond the positions pre- 
viously taken by our government through Lincoln, Seward, and 
Minister Adams, during the war and at its close. The injuries 
done were simply put by this speech before the country, before 
England, and before the world, as the actual relations of the 
parties. They were presented not as assessable claims or de- 
mands, but as matters to be known and considered as parts of the 
situation ; parts of England's misconduct towards our country ; 
parts of our grievance against England. And it should here be 
added that these considerations — considerations rather than 
claims — were afterwards perverted into pecuniary demands by 
Grant and Fish, and formulated as such by Fish and Davis, in 
an ofiensive manner, in what is known as our " Case " at the 
Geneva arbitration, — a course of conduct for which J. C. Ban- 

—7— 



croft Davis is believed to be largely, if not mainly, responsible, 
nearly costing us the loss of the settlement made by the Treaty 
of Washington. It may be affirmed, too, that Sumner's speech 
when made was approved by the entire country, and by Grant 
and Fish. The evidence of Grant's and Fish's approval seems 
clear, but it cannot be given in detail here. Afterwards Grant 
and Fish, together with Davis and other defenders of Grant 
and Fish, set up that this speech was unfortunate and embarras- 
sing to the administration, was made without consultation with 
Grant or Fish, and was highly disapproved by them at the time. 
The San Domingo treaty and the Johnson-Clarendon con- 
vention being thus rejected, the results being the removal of 
Motley, the gross and carefully-studied insult to Sumner by 
Fish in the despatch already referred to, and the keen per- 
sonal hostility of Grant to Sumner ; the matter of this discus- 
sion is now brought down to January, 1871, when negotiations 
were begun at Washington between Fish and Sir John Rose, 
special confidential agent of the British government, for the 
settlement of the existing grievances and claims of the United 
States against Great Britain. These negotiations shortly re- 
sulted in a memorandum outlining a plan of settlement, sub- 
mitted by Sir John Rose to Fish on January 11, 1871. At 
this stage Fish wished to consult Sumner, and finding upon 
inquiry that Sumner in spite of his deeply-felt personal griev- 
ance, was ready to confer with him on public business, he met 
Sumner at the latter's house, January 15, and after conference 
left with Sumner the memorandum of Sir John Rose for his 
further consideration. Two days later, on the 17th of January, 
1871, Sumner gave to Fish in writing his views on the mem- 
orandum of Sir John Rose, now reported to have been, in 
form and terms, as follows : 

" Memorandum for Mr. Fish, in Reply to His Inquiries. 

" First. — The idea of Sir John Rose is that all questions and causes 
of irritation between England and the United States should be removed 
absolutely and forever, that we may be at peace really, and good neigh- 
bors, and to this end all points of difference should be considered together. 
Nothing could be better than this initial idea. It should be the starting 
point. 



" Second.— T\i& greatest trouble, if not peril, being a constant 
source of anxiety and disturbance, is from Fenianism, which is excited 
by the proximity of the British flag in Canada. Therefore, the with- 
drawal of the British flag cannot be abandoned as a condition or prelimi- 
nary of such a settlement as is now proposed. To make the settlement 
complete, the withdrawal should be from this hemisphere, including 
provinces and islands. 

" Third. — No proposition for a joint commission can be accepted 
unless the terms of submission are such as to leave no reasonable doubt 
of a favorable result. There must not be another failure. 

" Fourth. — A discrimination in favor of claims arising from the 
depredations of any particular ship will dishonor the claims arising from 
the depredations of other ships, which the American Government cannot 
afford to do ; nor should the English Government expect it, if they would 
sincerely remove all occasions of difference. C. S. 

January 17, 1871." 

Holding in mind the facts now presented, we can clearly 
perceive the situation of the parties with reference to the treaty 
of Washington, and discuss their conduct. Mr. Adams finds 
in this memorandum of Sumner the ground on which he 
reaches the conclusion that Sumner's removal was not only 
warranted, but necessary and right ; right — it is to be supposed 
he means — in all senses of the word. 

Mr. Adams expresses great surprise that Mr. Pierce in 
his " Life of Sumner " has not given the text of Sumner's 
memorandum of January 17, 1871. Dwelling at some 
length on the amplitude of Mr. Pierce's Life of Sumner, 
he says : 

"The most remarkable and highly characteristic memorandum 
just quoted is expressed in about 220 words ; and yet for it Mr. Pierce 
found no space in his four massive volumes. He refers to it, indeed, 
showing that he was aware of its existence ; but he does so briefly, and 
somewhat lightly ; treating it as a matter of small moment, and no 
significance."^ 

Mr. Adams is less than accurate in saying that Mr. Pierce 
treats the memorandum briefly or lightly ; for in his 4th vol- 
ume, after noticing it at pp. 480, 481, he gives it full con- 
sideration at pp. 634-638. He does not give the text of the 
memorandum, for the reason, as it may easily be believed. 



1 Adams, Before and After, etc., 100, loi. 

—9— 



that he had no copy of it. It was a confidential, informal, 
unoflScial communication of Sumner to Fish, a mere memoran- 
dum signed only by the initials " C. S.," and it seems natural 
and altogether probable that Sumner kept no copy, and there- 
fore that no copy came into the hands of Mr. Pierce as his 
authorized biographer. It is not incredible, too, that Mr. 
Pierce felt that the memorandum, as given out by Davis, 
lacked evidence of authenticity. At p. 637, Mr. Pierce says: 
" Mr. Davis assumes to give the terms of Mr. Sumner's mem- 
orandum of January 17, 1871. Taking it as given, etc." — 
language which suggests possible doubt in Mr, Pierce's mind 
of the genuineness or correctness of the memorandum as given 
by Davis. 

Well might Mr. Pierce, well might any one now, pause long 
before such doubt ; for the contents of the memorandum are 
not half so "astounding," to use Mr. Adams's word, as are the 
time, manner, and purpose of its first production by Davis, — 
seven years after its date, four years after Sumner's death, and 
in a last attempt to shift the defence of Grant and Fish to more 
tenable ground. The quarrel, or controversy, of Grant and 
Fish with Sumner was determined and strenuous, especially in 
1871, and during Sumner's lifetime. Why was not this mem- 
orandum disclosed then ? Or, if there were delicacy or danger, 
as Davis hints, in making it known while negotiations were in 
progress, why at least was it not disclosed after the treaty of 
Washington had been signed, ratified, and carried into final 
efiect? Why especially, when in 1877, six years after its date 
and three years after Sumner's death, Fish was giving out self- 
exculpatory letters and interviews, and Grant in the same year 
was putting forward the new excuse of Sumner's neglect of 
duty, was no allusion made to this memorandum, or to any 
other action or position of Sumner which hindered or embar- 
rassed, or threatened to hinder or embarrass, the negotiation 
of the treaty of Washington ? In all this anxious casting about 
for a better defence, why did not this memorandum then come 
to mind? Such questions called for answer; and being unan- 
swered, they certainly warranted some degree of doubt of the 

—10— 



authenticity of the memorandum, — at least until it appeared 
in a government publication in 1895, from which it may be 
supposed that Mr. Adams took it.^ 

Davis, in his elaborate defence of Fish in the New York 
Herald letter, impliedly states that the contents of Sumner's 
memorandum were privately made known to senators at the 
time of Sumner's removal ; and he says that he had then no 
doubt and has since had no reason to doubt, that " the substi- 
tution of Mr. Cameron for Mr. Sumner was the practical 
answer of the leading Republican members (senators) to the 
manifesto of the 17th of January."^ Here we have Davis 
claiming that the knowledge of this memorandum by sena- 
tors was the cause of Sumner's removal, though in the next sen- 
tence but one of his letter, he confesses that the reason given 
for the removal — to whom given he does not say — was that " Mr. 
Sumner was not on speaking terms with the President and with 
Mr. Fish." Does any sane man believe that if such a reason 
as Sumner's memorandum, interpreted as Davis then, and Mr. 
Adams now, interprets it, was in the minds of senators when 
the removal took place, it would never have been hinted at by 
any one in the extreme stress of the debates of senators in 
caucus, and in the Senate? Or can any one conceive it possible 
that if such a reason was known and controlling, and if all 
allusion to it had been for any reason suppressed at that time, 
it would never have come to the public knowledge after all occa- 
sion for concealment was past, after the treaty was made and 
executed, and until long after Sumner's death? In the Senate, 
April 28, 1874, more than two years after the treaty had been 
carried into effect, three years after Sumner's removal, and 
more than a month after his death, discussion regarding the re- 
moval again broke out, but though the leading supporters of 
the removal struggled hard to put the best possible face on it, 
no remotest reference was made to Sumner's memorandum of 
January 17, 1871, nor to any other act of hindrance or oppo- 
sition on his part to the negotiations for the treaty of Washing- 

1 House, Misc. Docs., i893-'94, xxxix, 525. Intemat. Arbit. (Moore). 
^Davis, Mr. Fish and the Ala. Claims, 139. 

—11— 



ton. The conclusion must be that Sumner's memorandum, 
whatever else it did, did not play any part in the minds of 
senators in securing Sumner's removal ; and that grave doubt 
of its genuineness might reasonably have been felt when it was 
put out by Davis, for the first time, in 1878. Mr. Adams does 
not seem to give any heed to this memorandum as influencing 
senators. As to the removal of Sumner he says : 

"The step taken (the removal of Sumner) was one almost without 
precedent, and there is every reason to conclude that it had been decided 
upon in the private councils of the White House quite irrespective of the 
fate of any possible treaty which might result from the negotiations then 
in progress."^ 

Such must be the conclusion of an}' impartial mind upon 
consideration of what has now been stated. 

But the more serious question, the real question, remains — 
Was the memorandum of January 17, 1871, of itself a good 
cause for the removal, on the demand of the President? The 
Senate, according to Mr. Adams, merely registered the decree 
of the White House ; the removal had really no reference to 
any treaty ; General Grant was merely " now handling a cam- 
paign, and" — this is Mr. Adams's language — "so far as the 
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was 
concerned, the man of Donelson, of Vicksburg and of Appo- 
mattox, now had his eye coldly fixed on him," and " with his 
opponent and objective clear to him, he shaped his plan of 
operations accordingly."'^ 

The sole point in Sumner's memorandum which needs now 
to be considered, because it is the sole point discussed by Mr. 
Adams, is its second paragraph, in these words : 

" Second. — The greatest trouble, if not peril, being a constant source 
of anxiety and disturbance, is from Fenianism, which is excited by the 
proximity of the British flag in Canada. Therefore, the withdrawal of 
the British flag cannot be abandoned as a condition or preliminary of 
such a settlement as is now proposed. To make the settlement com- 
plete, the withdrawal should be from this hemisphere, including pro- 
vinces and islands." 

^Adams, Before and After, etc., 127, 
^Ibid., 124, 126. 

—12— 



It is well here to observe how wide asunder Davis and 
Mr. Adams are in their views of the first effect of the memo- 
randum upon Fish and Grant. Davis says : ' I well remember 
Mr. Fish's astonishment when he received it. At first he al- 
most thought any attempt at negotiations would prove futile."^ 
But Mr. Adams says, after a careful review of the situation as 
it then was : — 

" When received it (Sumner's memorandum) could have occasioned 
Mr. Fish no special wonder ; except, perhaps, in its wide inclusiveness, 
it suggested nothing new, nothing altogether beyond the pale of reasona- 
ble expectation, much less of discussion. It brought no novel considera- 
tion into debate."^ 

Nothing in Mr. Adams's address is more interesting, or illu- 
minating, or important, than his examination of this i)oint. As 
results, he shows that Sumner had long regarded the not re- 
mote withdrawal of England from this continent and hemis- 
phere " as the logical development of the Monroe doctrine." 
Mr. Adams further shows that from 1840 to 1870 and later, 
Great Britain herself looked upon her colonies as a burden, a 
source of weakness and not a source of strength. He further 
shows that Fish had repeatedly, before 1871 and as late as 
September, 1870, sounded and pressed Sir Edward Thornton, 
the British Minister at Washington, on the subject of the ces- 
sion of Canada, " the American claims on Great Britain being 
too large to admit of money settlement ;" and that Sir Edward 
Thornton had replied that "England had no wish to keep 
Canada, but could not part with it without the consent of the 
population." Again Mr. Adams represents Sir Edward Thorn- 
ton as saying to Fish in terms, in reference to the cession of 
Canada : " It is impossible for Great Britain to inaugurate a 
separation. They are willing, and even anxious, to have one;" 
and Thornton proceeds to give the reasons. Mr. Adams also 
shows that "not only at this time (1869) but long after, was a 
comprehensive settlement on this basis (the cession of Canada) 
urged on the British government " by our government ; and 

1 Davis, Mr. Fish and the Ala. Claims, 137. 

2 Adams, Before and After, etc., loi, 102. 

—13— 



that " both the President and Secretary of State were thus of 
one mind with Mr. Sumner." Mr. Adams goes on to adduce 
proofs of the willingness of Great Britain to consider the ces- 
sion of Canada in the settlement of our claims and grievances, 
and of Grant's lively eagerness to negotiate on that basis. In 
connection with this he states the very remarkable fact that Grant, 
late in 1869, " expressed his unwillingness to adjust the claims 
(against Great Britain) ; he wished them kept open until Great 
Britain was ready to give up Canada." Mr. Adams further 
says that the English mission, after Motley's removal, was 
offered to O. P. Morton who entertained the offer ; that Grant 
then proposed that " the new minister should attempt a negotia- 
tion based on the following concessions by Great Britain : ( 1 ) 
the payment of actual losses incurred through the depredations 
of British Confederate commerce-destroyers ; ( 2 ) a satisfactory 
revision of the principles of international law as between the 
two nations ; and (3) the submission to the voters of the 
Dominion of the question of independence," — independence 
meaning, of course, in Grant's mind, annexation.^ 

This part of Mr. Adams's address is a revelation which 
deserves the attention of all who love to consider great ques- 
tions of state. 

In view of these feelings both on the part of Great 

Britain and of Grant, Mr. Adams declares : 

" Sumner certainly had grounds for assuming that a not unwilling 
hemispheric flag-withdrawal by Great Britain was more than probable 
in the near future." 

He says further : 

" Up to this point (1870) the Chairman of the Senate Committee 
on Foreign Relations, the President, the Secretary of State, and the mem- 
bers of the Cabinet generally had gone on in happy concurrence. They 

had the same end in view Thus far .... the two 

questions of a settlement of claims and Canadian independence (that 
is, independence from England, to be followed by annexation to the 
United States) had been kept closely associated." ^ 

Now came a change ; but, Mr. Adams says : " The change 
was gradual ; for," he adds, " Mr. Sumner's policy had a strong 



1 Adams, Before and After, etc., 103-113. 

^Ibid., III. 

—14— 



hold on the minds of both President and Secretary."^ Sud- 
denly, however, Grant and Fish at last — but not earlier than 
December, 1870 — determined to drop the policy of " a com- 
prehensive settlement " on the basis of the transfer of Canada, 
and to negotiate for the immediate money settlement of the 
Alabama claims ; and thereupon, in a few days Sir John Rose 
appeared in Washington, and another basis of settlement was 
formulated, which was submitted, as has been seen, by Fish 
to Sumner for his opinion and drew from him the memorandum 
of January 17, 1871. Contrast all this with Davis's account of 
the shock of surprise felt by Fish at sight of Sumner's memo- 
randum ! If Mr. Adams is correctly informed, it was Sumner 
who mio-ht well have felt such a shock when he first learned on 
January 15, 1871, of the abandonment by Grant and Fish ot 
their common policy up to this time. If Mr. Adams is well 
advised, Sumner, Grant, and Fish had held common views as 
to Canada up to, or nearly to, the interview between Fish and 
Sumner on January 15, 1871. What passed at that interview 
we are not told, but two things are perfectly clear ; first, that, 
upon Mr. Adams's showing, Sumner in the memorandum of 
January 17, 1871, was merely standing on the same ground on 
which he, with Grant and Fish, had heretofore stood; and, 
second, that Sumner at the time he drew his memorandum had 
no reason to believe that his position would be offensive to 
Great Britain, or a fatal hindrance to negotiations. Nothing 
can be more important in considering the merits of Sumner's 
memorandum than these two things. Sumner was not only 
adhering to views long held by him in common with Grant and 
Fish — views familiar to the British government in preceding 
official communications between Fish and Sir Edward Thorn- 
ton — but he was again urging and formulating a policy which 
he had reason to hope would yet be accepted by Great Britain, 
and which he had hitherto known was approved by Grant and 
Fish. Mr. Adams again expressly says : 

" In his (Sumner's) memorandum, therefore, he demanded nothing 

^ Adams, Before and After, etc., iii. 
—15— 



new ; he merely, stating the case in its widest form, insisted upon adher- 
ence to a familiar policy long before formulated."^ 

It is worth noticing, too, that in an interview between 
Fish and Sir Edward Thornton in March, 1870, Fish pressed 
upon the British minister the identical considerations stated 
in the second paragraph of Sumner's memorandum. Mr. 
Adams says: "The secretary (Fish) again urged on the min- 
ister (Thornton) that the American provinces were to Great 
Britain a menace of danger; and that a cause of irritation, 
and of possible complication, would, especially in those times 
of Fenianism, be removed, should they be made independent."'^ 

It is not to be denied that Sumner wanted Canada. On 
many occasions he had expressed the Avish and hope, — but 
never except by peacefnl methods, by the cheerful acquiescence 
of England and Canada. He had repelled all other methods. 
" Territory," with his characteristic and habitual regard for 
the rights of all men, he had exclaimed at Worcester in Sep- 
tember, 1869, in discussing the union of Canada with our 
country, "territory may be conveyed, but not a people." The 
man, whoever he may be, who can think or claim that Charles 
Sumner had any other thought in his mind, under any circum- 
stances, regarding Canada, than that of fair, honorable, peace- 
ful, willing union through the free consent of England and 
Canada, may assure himself that he does not yet know him. 
Of all our statesmen, living or dead, Sumner was the most 
scrupulous, the least ruthless. He had great views and aspi- 
rations for his country ; but his spirit was never aggressive or 
wanton. Mr. Adams well says : " Charles Sumner did not 
belong to the Bismarckian school of statesmanship." 

Considering the situation, as now presented, when Sumner 
framed his memorandum, the questions arise. What did its 
second paragraph signify, or what may it be certainly affirmed 
was Sumner's aim in submitting the memorandum to Fish, and 
how ought it to have been received and estimated by Grant and 
Fish? It should be carefully kept in mind at all times that 

^ Adams, Before and After, etc., 114. 
"^ Ibid., no. 

—16— 



the memorandum of January 17, 1871, was an informal, un- 
official, and confidential communication made to Fish ; and it 
cannot be imagined that Sumner for a moment contemplated 
as possible the use subsequently made of it, as we shall 
see, by Fish. Was there at that time the least ground for 
believing or fearing that Sumner meant by this memoran- 
dum to set himself implacably and finally in the way of all 
negotiations except upon the initial condition of a cession of 
Canada ? Plainly not. From anything yet disclosed, Sumner 
neither saw nor had reason to believe, when he wrote his mem- 
orandum, that there was a necessity for abandoning the effort 
to secure by peaceful negotiation the cession of Canada and the 
withdrawal of Great Britain from this continent. He saw, as 
we may safely suppose, by his interview with Fish on January 
15, as well as by the memorandum submitted to him by Fish on 
that occasion, outlining the basis of settlement as then tentatively 
arranged between Fish and Sir John Rose, that the administra- 
tion for some reason, doubtless unknown to him, had suddenly 
and completely reversed itself upon the general policy of the 
settlement with England which he had hitherto held in common 
with Grant and Fish. Further than this it is not made proba- 
ble that he had the means of penetrating the designs or 
reasons of the administration. As soon, therefore, as he care- 
fully considered the memorandum of settlement submitted to 
him by Fish, he found no reason for retiring from the position 
theretofore held by him as well as by the administration. It 
did not then appear, if Mr. Adams's information is correct, that 
Great Britain would regard the settlement which included the 
cession of Canada, as impossible. It may, indeed, be said 
that it does not now appear that if the administration had 
patiently put by the negotiations and waited, biding its time, 
that result might not have been reached. As to this, Mr. 
Adams himself finally says : " In the hands and under the 
direction of Mr. Sumner, the method he proposed to pursue 
to the end he had in mind, might have proved both effective, 
and in the close, beneficent."^ 

^Adams, Before and After, etc., 140. 

—17— 



The situation at this moment was a peculiarly favorable 
one for such a policy. It was the government of Great 
Britain, not the government of the United States — let it not 
be forgotten — that was now anxious for a settlement. The 
British government had repeatedly approached our government 
for terms of settlement. It was the British government that 
had now volunteered to send its accomplished special agent, 
Sir John Eose, to Washington to seek means of adjustment. 
Mr. Adams tells us why England was so anxious to settle. 
European complications and perils of the gravest kind were 
then staring her in the face. 

Doubtless Sumner saw in all this not only no reason for 
abating terms of settlement, but a most hopeful opportunity 
for diplomatic insistence on the terms already known to Eng- 
land, pressed by the administration, and discussed, but not 
repelled, by her minister at Washington. It would, there- 
fore, be first necessary to show that there was danger in further 
insistence, and that Sumner knew, or ought to have known, of 
such danger before he can be charged with deliberately and 
obstinately taking up an impracticable, or unwise, or dangerous 
position. From anything shown by Mr. Adams, no such 
charge will lie against Sumner on account of this memoran- 
dum. On the contrary, Mr. Adams specially states the fact, 
that Grant, as early as March, 1870, ^^ had cautioned Fish 
against communicatiny to Mr. Sumner any confidential or 
important information received at the State department." ^ 

Another ground for relieving Sumner from suspicion of an 
obstinate purpose to hinder any and all settlement, is that the 
second paragraph of his memorandum cannot reasonably be 
construed as Sumner's ultimatum, his irreducible minimum. 
Negotiations had but just been begun. The British special 
agent had been in Washington but six days. The memoran- 
dum of Sir John Rose which lay before him was the first 
approach to a new basis of settlement. Was it for Sumner, 
still holding in good faith his long cherished policy of coupling 

^Adams, Before and After, etc., in. 
—18— 



our grievances with the cession of Canada — a policy heretofore 
acted on by the administration, and specially dear to Grant, 
but now suddenly abandoned by the administration, — was it 
for him without an instant's demur or further effort, to follow 
the retreating administration ? He might well have felt ; he 
probably did feel ; that England's anxiety to settle was his own 
country's golden opportunity, not to extort unrighteous terms, 
but terms honorable and advantageous, the most honorable and 
advantageous possible, to his own country, and not offensive 
or oppressive to England. If Sumner reasoned thus, he 
reasoned well ; he reasoned patriotically ; and with this in mind, 
his memorandum becomes only an effort, timely and wise, to 
secure the most adequate possible redress for his country's 
wrongs. So construed and regarded, his memorandum of 
January 17, 1871, was not impracticable, nor obstructive. 

And how did Grant, according to Mr. Adams, regard 
Sumner's memorandum? Merely as a strategic advantage 
gained over Sumner ; whereby to punish him for his audacity 
in opposing Grant's San Domingo enterprise. It would seem 
from Mr. Adams that this was all Grant thought of ; and it 
also seems certain that with his "quick eye," as Mr. Adams 
remarks, "for a strategic situation," Grant felt exultation, 
rather than dismay — as Davis pictures Fish as feeling — at sight 
of Sumner's memorandum. Mr. Adams says : 

"When Secretary Fish, with Sumner's memorandum in his hand, 
went to Grant for instructions, the President's views as to the indepen- 
dence and annexation of Canada at once underwent a change. As he 
welcomed an issue with his much disliked antagonist on which he felt 
assured of victory, hemispheric flag-withdrawals ceased to interest 
him ;" ^ 

— which plainly means that, in Grant's view, Sumner had merely 
blundered, giving him a weapon which he could readily use to 
worst one whom he had come greatly to dislike. That Grant 
thought Sumner's memorandum intrinsically wrong or unwise 
does not appear. Nowhere, it may be affirmed, does it appear, 
from Mr. Adams or elsewhere, that the memorandum of Janu- 

^Adams, Before and After, etc., 119. 
—19— 



ary 17, 1871, was really anything more than a politic, reason- 
able, diplomatic insistence, at the stage of the negotiations then 
reached and under the then existing circumstances, on a policy 
maturely adopted and long pursued both by Sumner and by 
the administration. Still less does it appear that Grant and 
Fish, in fact, did look upon the memorandum, or would have 
had reason for looking upon it, as unexpected, or obstructive, 
or embarrassing. If the conditions set forth in the second 
paragraph of the memorandum should prove dangerous or ob- 
structive, it might be at once modified or withdrawn ; and who 
can reasonably say that Sumner would not have readily with- 
drawn his insistence or opposition whenever the point of danger 
had been reached ? 

So far, then, as Grant and Fish are concerned, up to this 
point it comes to just this ; — that Grant saw, in Sumner's mem- 
orandum, nothing but a strategic advantage which he could 
use to "get even" with Sumner; and Fish saw in it nothing 
new, nothing novel or unfamiliar, nothing unreasonable, — 
nothing, in fact, but a re-affirmation of an old and well-under- 
stood policy of the administration. 

There is a phase of this topic, presented by Mr. Adams, 
which is undoubtedly new to the public, and not a little start- 
ling in its character ; — the use made of Sumner's memorandum 
of January 17, 1871, by Fish. Davis had told the public 
that it was used to secure Sumner's removal in the Senate, be- 
ing privately made known to senators — a statement which — 
besides showing a grave departure from the standard of 
justice and fair play in making private communications intended 
to injure Sumner without giving him a chance to reply or ex- 
plain — seems, as we have seen, to lack proof or probability ; 
but Mr. Adams now informs us that Fish handed the memo- 
randum on January 24, 1871, to Sir John Rose. After the 
latter had read it, Fish proceeded to inform him that "after 
full consideration, the government had determined to enter 
on the proposed negotiation ;" that is, the negotiation outlined 
or formulated in the memorandum submitted to Sumner by 
Fish, January 15, 1871, and to which Sumner's memorandum of 

—20— 



January 17, 1871 , was a reply. " Should Great Britain decide," 
added Fish to Sir John Rose, "to send out envoys to treat on the 
basis agreed upon, the administration would spare no effort to 
secure" — Mr. Adams here quotes — "a favorable result, even 
if it involved a conflict with the chairman of the Committee 
on Foreign Relations in the Senate. "^ Having received this 
assurance, Sir John Rose in the next week, — such was the 
intense anxiety of his government to get a settlement, — was 
able to obtain a notification to our government that the 
English government would send a special mission to Washing- 
ton with full powers. Matters now moved rapidly, and on 
February 27, 1871, seven weeks only after the arrival of 
Sir John Rose in Washington, the Jomt High Commission for 
the negotiation of a treaty met in Washington, and on the 
following May 8th the Treaty of Washington was signed. 

The point is now reached where comes the stress of Mr. 
Adams's defence of the removal of Sumner. Stated as briefly 
as possible, his position is, that Fish did right to acquaint Sir 
John Rose and the British goverment with Sumner's memo- 
randum, in order to advise that government of the possible 
danger of a failure of the negotiations through Sumner's oppo- 
sition ; and the British government having decided to take the 
chances, upon the promise of our administration to "spare no 
effort" to overcome opposition on Sumner's part, that the 
President was warranted, indeed bound, to secure the removal 
of Sumner, if possible ; and that not to have done so " would," 
in Mr. Adams's words, " have distinctly savored of bad faith" 
towards the British government. Mr. Adams then takes the 
positions : 

(i) that "in the conduct of the foreign policy of the country, the 
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was and is of 
necessity a part of the administration ;"2 

(2) that while "the executive cannot directly interfere in theorgan- 
ization of the legislative body, it has a perfect right to demand of its 
friends and supporters in the legislative bodies that those having charge 

^Adams, Before and After, etc., 124. 
^Jbid, 127. 

—21— 



through committees of the business of those bodies shall be in virtual 
harmony with the administration." ^ 

His conclusion from these premises is that Grant was 
justifiable and within his right as President, in influencing and 
procuring the removal of Sumner. 

Here it may be noticed again that Mr. Adams makes quick 
work of the pretexts and excuses of Davis and of others for 
the removal both of Motley and of Sumner. He shortly sets 
down the removal of the former as due to Grant's wrath at 
Sumner : and the removal of the latter, as we have already 
seen, as due to a determination reached by Grant "quite 
irrespective of the fate of any possible treaty." He now, 
however, justifies the removal which he has already said was 
decided upon for reasons " quite irrespective of the fiite of any 
treaty," on the grounds just above stated, (1) that it was due 
to the British government which had received the promise of 
the overthrow of Sumner's opposition, if possible, and (2) that 
the President had the right to induce or require the Senate to 
organize its committee on foreign relations, in harmony with 
the administration. If a slight shade of inconsistency is here 
discernible on Mr. Adams's part, in first ascribing Sumner's 
removal to Grant's determination " irrespective of the fate of 
any treaty," and then justifying it as due to his promise to the 
British government, the explanation must be sought from Mr. 
Adams, not from the present writer. 

Into the question of the right, propriety, or decency of 
Fish's conduct, in exhibiting Sumner's memorandum to Sir 
John Rose, and through him to the British government and its 
High Commissioners, without Sumner's consent or knowledge, it 
is not proposed here to enter. If looked at as a matter 
between man and man in ordinary life, it would undoubtedly 
call for nothing but censure, if not execration. Whether in 
the present case the judgment should be different, it is not 
essential to discuss here ; but as a companion piece, it is 
perhaps permissible to refer to Mr. Adams's narration of another 
incident connected with Sumner's removal which, it is believed, 

1 Adams, Before and After, etc., ii6. 

—22— 



has not hitherto been known to many. He relates that, as one 
device for getting rid of both Sumner and Motley at a stroke, 
B. F. Butler and Simon Cameron proposed to Fish to appoint 
Sumner to succeed Motley. Mr. Adams says : 

" This suggestion also was discussed at a Cabinet meeting, and the 
President expressed a willingness to make the nomination on condition 
that Sumner would resign from the Senate ; btit he also intimated a 
grim determination to remove him from his new office as soon as he 
had been confirmed in it.''^^ 

Upon this incident Mr. Adams withholds comment. 

The inquiry then is, finally, whether Grant's promise, the 
promise of the administration, to " spare no effort" to overcome 
Sumner's possible opposition, affords a justification of Sumner's 
removal ? 

First of all, it is to be observed that in point of fact 
Sumner made no opposition at any time after January 17, 
1871, to the negotiation of the treaty of Washington, or to 
its ratification by the Senate, none whatever. On the contrary 
he was in constant, cordial and helpful relations with the High 
Commissioners of both nations, in the progress of their con- 
ferences and sittings ending in the treaty ; and in the Senate 
he made the principal speech in support of the treaty, though 
his removal had been efiected two months previously ; and he 
voted for its ratification, offering several amendments, though 
not pressing them.^ 

Into the judgment to be passed upon Sumner's removal, 
must, therefore, enter the consideration that he was in fact 
removed before he had made any opposition, or given hint of 
opposition, beyond the memorandum of January 17, 1871 ; 
and that he did in fact, at every subsequent stage forward, to 
the extent of his ability, the negotiation and the ratification of 
the treaty. What ground, it is imperative now to ask, con- 
nected with the memorandum of January 17, 1871, can be 
found for the justification of Sumner's removal? Recall the sit- 

^The italics here are the present writer's. Adams, Before and 
After, etc., 95. 

2 Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Sumner, iv, 488-491. 

—23— 



uation. For a long time prior to January 15, 1871, Sumner 
and the administration represented by Grant and Fish, had held 
to the policy of " a comprehensive settlement of our whole 
grievance " with England by a voluntary, peaceful cession of 
Canada, a policy actually and repeatedly discussed by Fish 
and Thornton, and one specially satisfactory and attractive to 
Grant. Mr. Adams makes all this very clear. Suddenly this 
policy is dropped, and Fish presents Sumner with a wholly 
new programme, of which Sumner could have had no previous 
knowledge. Sumner after deliberation reiterates the former 
polic}', but without any intimation of a purpose to push it 
obstinately or to the point of danger. Thereafter Sumner, 
probably perceiving that the abandonment of its policy by the 
administration had made further insistence unwise or impracti- 
cable, makes no opposition of any kind to the carrying out of 
the new policy of the administration. What cause or warrant 
now remained for interference with Sumner in his chairman- 
ship ? The President's promise to " spare no effort " to over- 
come his opposition? But he had made, was making, or 
hinting at making, no opposition. He might yet do so? But 
would it not be soon enough to attack him when he gave sign 
of opposition or obstruction? On March 10, 1871, when 
Sumner was removed by the Senate, he had given no sign of 
obstructing, or wishing to obstruct, the progress of negotia- 
tions for a treaty which were then under full headway. Did 
Grant's promise to " spare no effort " to overcome Sumner's 
opposition, require him, under these circumstances, to antici- 
pate opposition from Sumner, and proceed at once to procure 
his removal? No one can pretend this. 

But another question. Suppose Sumner should oppose 
the treaty ; was it necessary to remove him from his chairman- 
ship in order to overcome his opposition ? Could he not be 
quietly outvoted at every point when the treaty came before 
the Senate ? His removal was, as Mr. Adams is well within 
the truth in saying, " almost without precedent." It was at 
best and admittedly an extreme measure. Its accomplishment 
was a difficult task even for " the man of Donelson, of Vicks- 

—24— 



burg and of Appomattox," with all his then overshadowing 
prestige. On test votes in the caucus, the opponents of Sum- 
ner had the slight majorities of only five and two, the normal 
Eepublican majority then in the Senate being nearly fifty. Is 
it not impossible to say, in view of this record, that it was 
necessary to remove Sumner, even if he had continued the 
most strenuous opposition to the treaty ? His opposition could 
have been overcome in a far easier and not less efiective way. 

Mr. Adams urges that Sumner could, as chairman of the 
Senate committee on foreign relations, have defeated the rati- 
fication of the treaty. He says : 

"That Mr. Sumner, had he, on consideration, concluded that it 
was his duty to oppose the confirmation of the treaty, could, placed as he 
now was (/. e., removed as chairman), have secured its rejection, is not 
probable. As Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, it would 
almost unquestionably have been in his power so to do ; not directly, 
perhaps, but through the adoption of plausible amendments."^ 

This is certainly an opinion for which reasons not given by 
Mr. Adams are needed. " Plausible amendments?" Could plausi- 
ble amendments, or amendments of any sort, escape the notice 
of other senators, or be passed over their opposition? Would 
Grant and Fish have slept while Sumner in the Senate undid 
all their work by plausible amendments? This suggestion of 
Mr, Adams scarcely calls for notice. 

The present paper cannot well be closed without some ref- 
erence to Mr. Adams's positions; (1) that "the Chairman of 
the Senate Committee on Foreign Kelations was and is of 
necessity a part of the administration;" and (2) that the ex- 
ecutive department has "a perfect right to demand of its 
friends and supporters" in the Senate, that the Committee on 
Foreign Relations " shall be in virtual harmony with the ad- 
ministration." These are surely grave propositions. They 
deserve notice. 

The constitution of the United States provides that the 
President shall have power, by and with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate, by a two-thirds vote, to make treaties. 

1 Adams, Before and After, etc., 131. 
—25— 



This provision must have suggested, it is assumed, Mr. Adams's 
positions. 

Merely remarking here, in passing, that the more correct 
statement of Mr. Adams's idea would seem to be, that the 
Senate itself, the whole Senate, each and every senator, — not 
alone the chairman of the committee on foreign relations, — is 
a part of the administration ; it is now to be said that the 
constitutional provision in question, as the contemporaneous 
history shows and as all authorities hold, was put in its pres- 
ent form as a distinct check upon the power of the President. 
It was intended to place the separate and independent power 
to approve or reject treaties in the hands of another deposi- 
tary than the President. The Senate's power over treaties 
when negotiated and sent to the Senate, is as substantive 
and independent as that of the President in negotiating them. 
To say, then, that the Senate is a part of the treaty-making 
power under our government is to speak accurately ; but on 
what theory or ground can the chairman of the Senate committee 
on foreign relations be said to be, in any sense, a " part of the 
administration?" The administration is the President and his 
oflficial advisers or assistants, the Cabinet officers. Or, in its 
broadest scope, the administration is only the executive de- 
partment of the government. The chairman of the Senate com- 
mittee on foreign relations is not a Cabinet officer, is not 
appointed by the President, does not hold at the pleasure of 
the President, is not answerable or amenable in any particular 
to the President ; nor is he, nor is the Senate, nor any part or 
member of the Senate, a part of the executive department of 
the government. How, then, can the chairman of the Senate 
committee on foreign relations be, in any sense, a " part of the 
administration ?" The Senate as a legislative body is part of 
the legislative department of our government, but as such, it 
is strictly co-ordinate with, not a part of, any other depart- 
ment of the government. To make it, or the chairman of its 
committee on foreign relations, a part of the administration in 
any sense, is to make it or the chairman of its committee on 
foreign relations subordinate to, and not co-ordinate with, 

—26— 



another department of the government — an untenable and in- 
admissible proposition on its face. Co-ordination is one thing ; 
subordination is another thing. Co-ordination, or even co- 
operation, between two departments of the government, is 
admissible, is provided for, and constantly takes place, as in 
the case now under consideration, of treaty-making ; but sub- 
ordination, subjection, control over, one department or any 
part of one department by another department, or by an officer 
of another department, is opposed to any correct conception of 
the frame of our government. All this is plain to a demon- 
stration. 

Not only is this true as to the frame of our government, 
the intention of its framers, and the uniform working and 
interpretation of our constitution, but it is plainly the dictate 
or demand of reason and the public safety. It is the un- 
doubted, solemn duty of the Senate and of all its individual 
members — no duty is more binding — ^to preserve and exercise 
at all times a free, independent, unconstrained judgment on all 
questions requiring the judgment or action of the Senate. 
Neither the Senate as one body, nor any sub-division of that 
body, nor any individual member of that body, owes the least 
duty of obedience or subordination to the President or to the 
administration. No greater indignity to a senator in his offi- 
cial character can be imagined than to seek to lower him to 
the position of one subject to the behest of a President or an 
administration ; or to regard him as holding his position in 
the Senate, or exercising any senatorial function, to any extent, 
at the pleasure or will of the President or the administration. 
If nothing else is clear or certain in this discussion, it is clear 
and certain that no senator can be, in any possible sense, or 
relation, " a part of the administration." 

Equally clear is it, for like reasons, that the President has 
no right or business to interfere in the Senate by way of urgency, 
pressure, or influence, or in any manner which afiects, or is cal- 
culated to affect, the perfect freedom of action of the Senate, 
or of a senator, in any matter committed by law to the action 
and judgment of the Senate. Such interference rises high 

—27— 



above the degree of an impropriety, and becomes a wrong, a 
true outrage upon the official and personal rights, privileges, 
and dignity of the Senate and of all its members. Such must 
be the verdict upon any conduct of Grant or Fish or of any one 
directed or inspired by them, who sought the removal of 
Sumner by any pressure or influence or insistence which inter- 
fered with, or which was designed or suited to interfere with, 
the perfectly free judgment and action of any senator or of 
the Senate, or with the perfectly independent organization of 
the Senate and of its committees for the transaction of its 
business. 

One of the least valid, therefore, of the defences yet 
made of Sumner's removal, under the circumstances of its 
occurrence in 1871, is the claim of Mr. Adams, that the chair- 
man of the Senate committee on foreign relations, " was and 
is a part of the administration ;" and as such, that it was the 
right of the President to require Sumner's removal, and the 
duty of the Senate to make it. 

It seems onlj^ necessary, in concluding, to say that after 
thorough re-examination and full consideration of all the 
available sources of information and of all previous discus- 
sions, including especially the present address of Mr. Adams, 
the conclusion is clear ; — that the cause of Sumner's removal 
was precisely and only what Carl Schurz and Henry Wil- 
son at the time declared it to be. Said Mr. Schurz : " The 
San Domingo scheme was at the bottom of the whole diffi- 
culty ;" and he pronounced the absence of personal relations 
between Grant and Fish and Sumner, " a flimsy pretext !" Said 
Henry Wilson : 

" Sir ; The truth is, and everybody knows it, and it is useless for 
the senator from Wisconsin, or any other senator, to deny it, that this 
proposition to remove my colleague grows out of the San Domingo ques- 
tion. If there had never been an effort to annex San Domingo, we should 
have had no attempt to change the chairmanship of the committee on 

foreign relations, or to remove members from that committee 

The people of the country, say what you may about it, will come to the 

—28— 



conclusion that at the bottom of it all lies this San Domingo annexation 
question."^ 

And a final conclusion is, that no cause has yet been 

shown which does not leave the removal of Sumner where the 

public has hitherto placed it ; — among the most unwarrantable, 

grossly unjust, and inexcusable acts ever committed in our 

political history. 



Charles Sumner, throughout a long career, ever "clear in 
his great oflice," served Massachusetts and the nation, his gen- 
eration and his age, with unsurpassed fidelity. Not without 
some conceded limitations and foibles, it may yet be aflSrmed that 
the roll of American statesmen bears the name of no one who, 
on the whole, worked for the welfare of the whole country and 
of all races of men more constantly, more faithfully, or more 
successfully. It was his lot, late in life, to feel " the slings 
and arrows of outrageous fortune." He never quailed or fal- 
tered in the hard way which he was called to follow. Sitting 
now in the peace and quiet of later days, the present writer 
will perhaps be pardoned if he confesses that he has felt the 
force of the closing words of Carlyle's Life of John Sterling. 
' Why defend Charles Sumner ? ' "I imagine I had a higher com- 
mission than the world's, the dictate of Nature herself, to do 
what is now done." 



1 Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Sumner, iv, 473. 



—29— 







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